Hidden
by Kelaine729
Summary: Trapped in a broken mind, Rumplestiltskin remembers one thing: to protect his son from Zelena. Anti-Zelena story. Implied rape, abuse.


_You feed the madness, and it feeds on you. You feed the madness, and it feeds on you. . . ._

Rumplestiltskin repeated the words over and over again, in hisses or whispers or silent screams in his mind. He couldn't tell which anymore. It helped. Something to listen to beside the other voices in his head, the dead, the Darkness, Bae. . . .

He could feel his son in the farthest corners of his thoughts though he pushed him as far away as he could, hiding him, protecting him. For the most part, Bae let himself be pushed. He'd kept him secret from Zelena.

Or had he? Dreams, nightmares, they all blended together. Was any of this real or was this his private hell, his punishment for being who and what he was, the cripple, the failure, the man who ran?

No, no, Zelena knew Bae wasn't dead, knew he was somewhere she couldn't reach, knew sharing a life with him had driven Rumplestiltskin mad. But, she didn't know how close to life he hovered, didn't know that Rumplestiltskin could draw him back.

She mustn't know, mustn't find out. Keep the child safe. Don't let the monsters get him, no matter what it takes. Crushing a leg, running into a burning castle, searching for centuries, letting Regina's curse trap him, dying, whatever it took.

But, dying hadn't been enough. It should have been enough. Why wasn't it?

If any of this was real. If he wasn't dead.

The witch was restless. Waiting, waiting, always waiting. The child she needed hadn't been born yet. Emma.

No, Emma was born. Emma was lost. This was another child. Or was it? Had any of that happened?

Yes, because the witch paced up and down outside his cage. She would turn on him soon. She always did. If he were lucky, she would only question him, looking for secrets, a spell she didn't know, a useful story from his past.

Secrets, secrets, Zelena didn't understand secrets. They were subtle weapons, most powerful when their existence wasn't even known, add a delicate stitch here, drop a carefully chosen word there, see the pieces fall into place. Instead, Zelena beat and bludgeoned. She learned nothing from the stories he told.

One secret. One secret still hidden. Unknown. Not suspected. He could hide nothing from her if she asked, so she mustn't ever ask.

Protect the child. Keep him safe.

But, if she didn't ask secrets, she would ask for other things.

_Come here, Doll._

_Make me happy. _

_You want to make me happy, don't you Doll? _

Sometimes, she let him answer honestly. Then, she laughed at his helplessness.

_You want to hurt me, don't you, Doll? Go ahead. Do it. _

_That's right. You can't. Not so long as I hold _this.

If he were lucky, that would be enough. Humiliation. Perhaps, some pain. He could endure that.

_Fealty. Kiss my boot._

She knew those words, had drawn them out of him, made him act them out often enough here in his cage or in the rooms that had once been his and were now hers (never his, not again. Destroy them, forget they ever existed, purge her memory from these halls). But, she didn't know the words that had come after them or before. She wouldn't have understood them if she did.

_Not in front of my boy._

_I can't lose you, Bae. You're all I've got left._

_Quick, hide! In the ditch. Hide! Go, go, go!_

Protect him. Keep him hidden. Keep him safe.

Today, he was not lucky. Today, she started with taunts and games, asking the questions she had already asked, over and over again (hadn't she? Past, present, future, what did they mean? Was he awake or dreaming? Alive or dead? What was the difference?). But, it wasn't enough. It was never enough.

This time, humiliation wasn't enough. This time, she told him to come with her to her rooms. So, he went. She told him to help her out of her robes. So, he did. She told him to kiss her feet. So, he did. Whatever she told him, he did, trying to blank his mind, to feel nothing, to think of his body as a machine, something empty and soulless, seen from a distance, nothing to do with _him._

But, it couldn't stop the whisper in his thoughts.

_Papa._

He pushed the voice back, terrified. He could feel Bae pressing against the bonds, trying to get free.

_No, she mustn't see, mustn't know. Stay hidden. Stay safe. _

Bae hadn't listened when Hordor came. He hadn't hid. He told Hordor he was almost fourteen, old enough to fight, old enough to die. Too brave, too foolish, to know he could die. Always.

_Don't. Please, Bae, don't. This once, just this once, listen to me._

Bae subsided, faded into the corners of his mind. Zelena was still speaking, still telling him what to do. It didn't matter if he heard or not. Whether he wanted to or not—whether he _thought_ or not—his body obeyed her commands.

Not that he fought, not this time, useless though it was. He tried to make her happy, to give her what she wanted, trying to keep Bae from seeing or hearing or feeling or knowing what the witch did, trying to lull his son into sleep and failing.

Maybe Zelena sensed his distraction. Maybe she was just angry.

Of course, she was angry. She was always angry. She ranted for hours (had ranted? Would rant? The woman in his bed—_her _bed, not his, he would burn it down if he could—was she real or a nightmare? Or a vision of the world to come?) about injustice, how it wasn't _fair_, how she never had got what she wanted, while she took, and took, and took.

Then, her mood shifted. She watched him like a cat deciding whether or not to eat a mouse. He braced himself, trying to gather his shattered thoughts for whatever came next.

The witch smirked. "That was better than Belle, wasn't it?"

The word rolled around in his head, amid the echoing voices. He tried to understand. Better. Better. What did it mean? What was better?

Belle wasn't here. Bae was. But, Belle wasn't. She was safe. Better both were safe. But, one was better than none.

Zelena's hands were on his shoulders. Her nails bit deep. "I said, it was _better_. Wasn't it?"

Her voice promised more punishments if he didn't answer or if the answer wasn't right. "Better," he murmured. "Better."

She glared at the confused madness in his eyes. "You don't believe that, do you?"

"This is better. Much better."

"And you don't want her here?"

Her. She meant Belle. For a moment, his mind was clear. "No, never."

She laughed. "Do you mean that?"

"Always." Truth. Complete. Nothing hidden or false. But, she heard what she wanted to hear and laughed, delighted. Still, the darkness didn't leave her eyes.

"But, you still want to kill me, don't you?"

He understood that, too. He tried to lie, tried to twist the truth into something she would want to hear, but couldn't. "Yes."

She laughed again. Bae stirred inside him. He could feel him listening, watching. "Do it, Doll. Conjure a weapon, any weapon. Try to kill me."

An image, again from Bae, a weapon from the world he'd come to call home. "I won't kill you," Rumplestiltskin whispered, terrified. Once. Only once. If he failed. . . .

_Now, Papa, _Bae whispered in his mind. _We'll never get another chance. Now._

The weapon formed in his hand, like nothing Zelena had ever seen. Her eyes widened. "What is that?" she asked, but he didn't hear her. Deep inside him, Bae was reaching out.

_Keep the boy safe._

_Protect him from her. Stop her. Distract her. Don't let her see._

The secret, his secret, the one he'd held back, the only thing he'd kept from her all this time.

_Show her, Papa, _Bae whispered. _It's the best chance we'll get. Show her._

If they failed, Bae would die. She would pull him out, cut the tie between them, make him watch as the last drops of life drained out of his son.

If they didn't, she would kill Bae. Sooner or later, on a whim, as part of her plans, or just to hurt him and laugh when his boy was dead. It was only a matter of time.

Time. What was time? A second to go. A half second. A quarter second. An eighth. And on and on, dividing each moment further and further, hiding eternity in the ticking of a clock. He could hide Bae forever. Or until his time was up.

_Now, Papa. Don't fight me. Let me do it, now._

So, he let Bae surge forward, becoming him while he slipped away into the back of Bae's mind.

Bae, who wasn't bound by the curse. Bae, who the dagger had no power over, who could harm Zelena before she had a chance to stop him.

"It's a gun," he heard son say.

Then, he heard the clear, loud crack of a bullet firing.


End file.
